


the teenage queen, the loaded gun

by rainingroses05



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda?, Season 1, i haven't written anything here for like a year lol but here i am with my new obsession, i love them and no one can change my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingroses05/pseuds/rainingroses05
Summary: "Tyra’s always thought of forgiveness as this sick, cyclical thing, like some kind of addiction, just another way people destroy themselves. But then there’s Tim, with his promises and those eyes just begging you to love him, and he slams his car door, looking the worse for wear but still smiling when he sees her, and she never wants him to stop looking at her like that."
Relationships: Tyra Collette/Tim Riggins
Kudos: 11





	the teenage queen, the loaded gun

**Author's Note:**

> title from read my mind by the killers

This is how it usually goes, on the rare game nights they aren’t at some party, surrounded by sloppy drunk rally girls with their hands all over him. They go back to Tim’s. They have sex. They shower, sometimes. He puts on pajama pants and tosses her an old t-shirt, grabs two beers, turns on the TV; she sits on the couch. Then- this is her favorite part- he joins her on the couch, stretches out beside her, head in her lap, wet hair dripping on her thighs, yawning, letting his guard down just enough to remind her why she hasn’t broken up with him yet.

It starts off like that tonight, mostly. He finds her after the game, puts his hand on her waist. She scoffs and pushes him away, but she’s in his car before he can start trying to talk. Some habits die hard. 

_ Stupid. _

They go back to his place. They have sex; they shower. It’s always easy, coming back to him. Muscle memory. It all means nothing- and she tells him this as she pulls his shirt up over his head, his hands pressed hard on her hips. And again, drying her hair with a towel, eyes fixed on the floor-  _ Just bored, Riggins _ .  _ Don’t forget that _ . He doesn’t say anything, just tosses her a shirt that she knows she can’t put on. That would mean she’s staying. Tyra’s already broken a couple promises to herself tonight, but she can leave now, dignity mostly intact, shower again to wash his smell off her body, pretend it never happened. Everyone makes mistakes, and Tim Riggins just might be her biggest one. 

She’s reaching across the bed for her jeans when she feels his hand on her arm, a slow brush of fingertips that almost makes her laugh. They just had sex, for God’s sake, and now he can hardly touch her? But, then- she realizes- she’s still clutching at her towel like he hasn’t seen her naked more times than she can count. Funny how ‘casual sex’ seems to take the casual out of everything else. 

But his hands are on her waist now, lightly coaxing her back to his bed. She rolls her eyes, does her best to look bored. Then he says her name-  _ Tyra _ , soft and low, looking at her like he needs her for once in his fucking life- and a shiver goes through her whole body. 

He’s staring at her, hard. There’s a bruise on his cheek, just beneath his eye, darkening. “I’m an idiot,” he says.

She nods, presses her lips together. “You need me to make you feel better about that?” That’s what it’s all about now with them,  _ need _ .  _ Want  _ is reserved for things you can’t have, or can’t keep, like a way out of this town, like normal fathers, like Lyla Garrity. Tyra tries not to need anyone, but sometimes she wants him so bad it hurts.

He doesn’t give her an answer to her question, just, “I’m trying to apologize, Tyra.” He reaches for her hand, and she pulls away. It’s so much worse when he’s touching her. It’s like now, when he touches her, she can feel every time he’s touched her in the past year, all over again, every hands-tangled-in-her-hair kiss, every arm slung around her shoulders. 

“Well, you’re doing a pretty shitty job of it, then,” she says, and swallows hard, and then she’s up and gathering all of her things, dressing with her back to him, her towel abandoned on the floor. 

And she’s leaving, because if she stays, she’s just another stupid girl going back to some asshole guy who’ll probably end up another washed-up football star pumping gas at Texaco. If he doesn’t drink himself to death before then. (The problem is, she can see something else for him, sometimes).

His dad is in the living room when she leaves. Part of her wants to turn to Tim and ask him if this rediscovered relationship is  _ good _ , or if it’s just another thing that’s going to crumble beneath his feet. She’s seen the way Tim looks at his dad, like a hopeful little kid, dying for his approval, and all she can think about is how she knew that little kid, a long time ago. He has some kind of addiction to things that feel good now and hurt later, Tyra thinks, and she wonders if she’s become one of those things, just another drug.

She doesn’t say any of this. It isn’t hers to worry about anymore. 

\-------

She should have known. She should’ve seen it in his eyes, smelled the desperation on him as soon as he showed up. 

Really,  _ he  _ should’ve waited until her shift was over, shouldn’t have been so stupid, impulsive, self-destructive. But it’s hard for her not to feel guilty, in this moment, looking at him with his head resting against the window, black eye, split lip, definitely drunk out of his mind. And he went there alone. 

She lets Billy take Tim into his bedroom, and as soon as he comes out, she has an excuse to go in, a water bottle under her arm and a couple of Advil cupped in her palm. Tim doesn’t look up when she comes into the room, just stares vacantly at the wall, and she’s angry,  _ so  _ angry her hands are shaking, angry at him, mostly, because she saw that smile, blood in his mouth, blood on his teeth. That kind of self-destruction is terrifying. 

“You are a fucking idiot.” He gives no indication that he can even hear anything she’s saying, doesn’t even flinch. “Is  _ this  _ what your rally girls are drooling over, huh?”

“That’s all you, Tyra,” Tim says, finally, still slurring his words. “All you.”

And he’s right, in a way. Her nasty little possessive streak would say that’s what makes him hers, that she gets to see the ugly parts of him no one else does. She rolls her eyes, crosses the room, grabs his hand and presses the two little tablets into his palm, passes him the water bottle. “You’re welcome,” she says, and it’s supposed to sound biting and sarcastic. She watches him take a sip of water, and then she turns to leave. It’s easier to think with her back to him. It all seems almost simple- she’s done enough. 

But then, there’s this:

He grabs her wrist before she can get anywhere, and his eyes are half-closed, and he says, “Don’t go,” in this sleepy soft voice that makes him seem harmless when he’s anything but.

She stares at him, at his hand on her arm. “So, now you need me, huh?”

“I always need you, Tyra,” he says, his voice thick with alcohol and exhaustion, and Tyra laughs, because it’s that or cry.

She can feel the hot pressure behind her eyes and she’s made a promise that she won’t shed another tear over Tim Riggins, so she scoffs and says, “I just wish you were gonna remember saying that.” Then she tells him to move over, and she kicks her shoes off and settles herself onto the bed beside him. She doesn’t touch him, carefully maintains a sliver of space between them while they stare up at the ceiling.

“I fucked up,” he says, and she’s not sure if he’s talking about her, or his dad, or something else entirely, but she can hear his voice starting to break.

She’s never seen him like this, but it feels like a relief, somehow, to see his pain laid out bare so she doesn’t have to worry about it creeping out in ways she doesn’t expect. “I know,” she says, gently, and she wants to reach out to touch him because that’s the only way they know how to comfort- bare skin, heat, filling up all the empty space. She doesn’t. She’s not sure she could stop once she started, and the only thing stronger than that magnetism between them is the anger burning in the back of her throat. 

So, she just lies there until she can tell he’s asleep by the slow, warm sound of his breathing, and then she leaves. (She looks back over her shoulder this time, just once, just to make sure he’s still there). 

\-------

She’s sitting on the doorstep when he pulls up, picking the nail polish off her left thumb and thinking about forgiveness. Tyra’s always thought of forgiveness as this sick, cyclical thing, like some kind of addiction, just another way people destroy themselves. 

But then there’s Tim, with his promises and those eyes just  _ begging  _ you to love him, and he slams his car door, looking the worse for wear but still smiling when he sees her, and she never wants him to stop looking at her like that. 

“Rough morning?” she calls, and he doesn’t answer right away but makes his way up to the house and sits beside her. “Billy said you were out running an errand.”

“Something like that.”

They don’t talk for a while, but it’s the comfortable kind of quiet. It’s easy, like long summer days when it’s almost too hot to talk, lying in the sun, brushing fingertips in the grass. She can feel him looking at her, and she tilts her head up to the sky, hair sliding down her back, eyes closed.

“I really am sorry, Tyra,” he says, eventually. “For Lyla, for last night, for all of it.”

She opens her eyes slowly and turns to look at him. “Ask me one more time,” she says, and she can feel her heart jumping around in her chest. “For a second chance.”

“Oh,” he says,  _ oh _ , just like that, like the soft confusion you feel when you wake up in someone else’s bed. But he recovers quickly. “Should I get down on my knees, too?”

“That could be a nice touch,” she says without missing a beat.

Tim smiles and shakes his head, hair falling across his face. “You are somethin’, Collette.”

“Well, I’m not staying here forever,” Tyra says. As soon as the words are out of her mouth she knows it’s true, and she can tell by the look on Tim’s face that he does, too. “So, you better make the most of it while you’ve got me.”

“Yes, m’am,” Tim says, and grins, wide and carefree, and it feels like it did when it was easy,  _ easier, _ when she’d actually go to his stupid football games, when she’d lie in his bed on Saturday mornings and kiss his neck until he woke up.  _ Well, shit _ , she thinks,  _ here we go again.  _

His fingers are hooked through the belt loops of her jeans, and she swings one leg over both of his, so that she’s sitting in his lap, knees on either side of his hips. “Tell me how I can make it up to you.”

Tyra looks up again, pretends to think. “Well, it’s gonna take a  _ lot _ ,” she teases, looping her arms around his neck, hands in his hair. 

“Oh, yeah?” He leans in close until she can feel his breath on her lips.

“Yeah,” she says, and he kisses her then, hard, one hand pressing into the small of her back. It isn’t quite gentle- she’s not sure they know how to love each other like that, yet- but she can feel him smiling into her lips, and that’s enough. 

“I missed you,” he says, and sticks his hand into her back pocket, and she leans into him and laughs. 

“I can tell.” She pokes a finger into a hole in his jeans. She likes that he’s  _ hers  _ again, this messy boy with his too long hair and poor judgement and ripped jeans, blood and bruises and all. 

They sit out there on the front steps for what feels like forever, until Tim stands up, bringing her with him, her legs wrapped around his waist. He puts her down and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and they go inside, shutting the door behind them. And Tyra stays. 

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is @tyraacollette now pls come talk to me about this show


End file.
